Procrastination

I'm tidying my desk while my son does his writing assignment and my daughter writes a letter to her penpal. I just came across this tip:

Develop a system for paper, files, and bills; by keeping on top of your paperwork you will eliminate 20% of your stress in keeping up a household.

Well, duh.

I have a system. In our house, the kids always watch for the mailman, and there's a mad dash to be the first to the mailbox each morning. The winner brings the mail to me, wherever I happen to be - in the laundry room, putting on a load of laundry, or in my bedroom, making my bed, or in the living room, reading my Bible, or in the kitchen, pouring myself a cup of coffee. Wherever I am, they bring it to me. I read the mail, then sort out Rick's mail and send the rest of the stack to my desk with one of the kids. (It may or may not get there. Distractions have been known to happen.) If it does get there, it often gets mixed in with letters and bills and French papers and English assignments and ant bait and envelopes and pictures I am keeping to scrapbook some day.

I INTEND to have a system, whereby bills are put into a specific folder to be paid once a month, and letters that are to be answered are put into a separate folder to be checked and responded to on a regular basis. I INTEND to correct the kids' assignments daily. I intend to get the ant bait into the garden before winter.

Sadly, even though my intentions are good, my actions are not. I am a procrastinator. Sigh.

“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Smart fella.

A smarter fellow (the wisest man who ever lived, apart from Christ) wrote the following:

Ecclesiastes 9:10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

I don't think that procrastination is conducive to doing whatever my hand finds to do with my "might". If I am to do my best, to use all of my strength to glorify God, then I ought not to procrastinate.

Woodrow Kroll of Back to the Bible has a study on Procrastination available online.

He writes that we should never procrastinate, but do things with fervour, for three reasons:

1. We are imitators of Christ.
2. God created us with potential.
3. The time is limited.

Because I am an imitator of Jesus Christ, my glorious Saviour, and because I have been given talents to use for the glory of God and to benefit others, and because time's a wastin', I must quit my procrastinating.

Here's three more verses to think about. I'm signing off to finish the task of tidying my desk.

Proverbs 27:1 Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.

Luke 9:59-62 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.